Hope

Is Anyone Else Suffocating, Unnoticed?

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

I am in the struggle of my life. The enemy’s hands are closed around my neck. I gasp for breath, lashing out with my hands, struggling to break free. I accidentally strike the enemy as I violently thrash about.

At church, people stand near me, sipping tea and laughing together. Quips about the weather. To all outward appearances, I am sipping tea with them, laughing too. But the reality that is more real than the reality that can be seen is that I am at war. I can’t breathe.

The enemy has taken me to my knees now, where the life-or-death fight resumes. I feel death about to engulf me.

And then, like a person on a lifeboat, come to the rescue, to reach out a hand to a drowning man, she arrives. She hauls me into her boat. I am exhausted, soaking wet, and cold. “Thank you,” I gasp. My enemy is nowhere to be found.

“Who are you?” I ask. She is a random stranger. She shows me her clothes under her rain cloak. She is a fellow pilgrim, like me. Her clothes are dirty from months on the road. “God sent me to breathe life into you,” she explains.

She administers CPR and I feel stronger for a while. She offers me tea, biscuits, and a listening ear. She offers a blanket that calms my racing heart.

And that is how I met Aja, a random internet connection who opened my eyes a little wider regarding God’s path for me to follow.

I was afraid to journey further on, so God sent me a companion, for a while. And the journey has been easier with her around. She shoots the enemy with arrows from afar.

And she has been helping me to gather strength and to regain balance, to be ready to take the next baby step, leaning on her.

Because we are at war. For our future destinies with God.

What is He whispering about the next thing for you? Is it too big for you to succeed in?

That’s one of the ways you know your assignment is from God.

Are you strong enough to stand today, dear one, and to take the next step? Lean on my arm. Let’s listen to what God may be saying to you and let’s take the next step, together.

Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you. The Message

Lord, help us to have the humility to receive the ones that You send to us. I am reminded of the man stuck in flooded water, who refused help from the boat, the helicopter, and the swimmer with the extra life vest. “God will save me,” he explained.

God didn’t save him.

Once in heaven, he exclaimed, “God why didn’t You save me?” God replied that he wouldn’t receive the help that He had sent via the boat, the helicopter, the swimmer.

May we not be that stubborn Lord! Help us to ask questions, to humbly listen, to apply what we are learning from the guides that you send. And may we also, next week, help someone else get unstuck from the mud, even as our boots have just recently been cleaned from the same experience. Help us, Lord, to help each other, we pray.

Consider asking God, “Who should I be opening the depths of my heart to, sharing the thoughts that keep me awake at night? Who has wisdom to hear? Is there anyone that I can help to take one step out of their muck?”

Does Your Heart Long For the Gift of Hope?

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

Ah!!! All of it – yuck! It clambers on me, like a slime mold, slowly advancing. It climbs up my feet, and legs, though I protest, holding my arms high in an effort to keep it away. I try to push it back, frantically, but it advances. The yellow goo, unfeeling, is slowly encapsulating me. Will I be unable to breathe?

As it climbs up my chin, and toward my mouth, I cry out a guttural sound. I try to scare it with my bellowing roar but it enters, past my lower lip, advancing.

I sit on the ground, defeated. It continues to climb higher, up my cheeks now. I have succumbed. What is next?

And then you approach. Your legs are at my eye level as I sit on the ground next to you. I lift my eyes to your face. The slime swirls under your feet, but cannot climb you.

You extend your hand to me. Will I take it? Of course, I will. I lunge for your hand and the warmth surprises me. You look heavenward, up, your eyes closed as your fingers clasp around my hand.

I feel a tingling sensation, and a deep warmth, like water poring just under my skin. What is this? I am standing now, and I look in wonder at my hand that was just touching yours.

The slime pools and bubbles at my feet now, too, in a swirling confusion, but I pay no attention. I tread on it with ease.

I am laughing, embracing you. “Thank you! And wait!” I begin to say. I have so many, many questions. But you must not be detained. You stand in a circle and turn around once, or twice, and then are transformed into an eagle.

And you soar.

I jump after you. I try to flap my arms too. You become smaller and smaller, a tiny dot, gliding back and forth across the sky above me. You seem to be beckoning me just by your presence.

The impossible has become possible because of your life.

And what do I do, now that I have seen you? Do I sit down on the ground again, in despair, and wait once more for the slimy mold to… no!

But yet I can’t fly! I am lost in confusion. I circle once, twice, spinning, and then fall to the ground, dizzy. I did not transform as you did.

What will become of me? Oh – what was it that you gave me? Yes, I put it into my pocket. That tiny piece of paper.

I read like a starving man who has not seen food for days eats. What does it say?

Pile your troubles on God’s shoulders— he’ll carry your load, he’ll help you out. The Message

And so I rant, and I complain, and I speak of what ails me. And the slime mold oozes from my mouth. It was not outside of me but within me this whole time! When I speak it aloud and expel my inner contents in a mess of turmoil to my God, then the slime mold is expelled from within me.

I wipe my mouth. I feel gross and splattered with my mess and yet my stomach ailments feel better, too. And what now, I wonder? I feel lighter now, almost as if I could…

I spin around once, twice, and then, the wind beneath my foot pushes my foot into the air at the exact moment that I leap up. I turn in the air, once twice, and …

I am an eagle, now, soaring, too.

I crisscross the sky, just above them. Can they see me? I think they can if they squint, look closely, believe. Are any of them ready to step out of the advancing slime mold too?

Get up, get up, dear friend.

A Gift We All Want – Freedom from Fear

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

The edge of the shadow creeps higher.

From the corner of my vision, I see it. It grows, curving and menacing as it climbs, encompassing my field of vision. It expands before my widening eyes.

I slouch, making myself smaller. Only my huge eyes can be seen now, staring at it, watching it grow.

Pop! It is gone! I sit up in wonder, turning round to see what has happened. You have flipped the light switch to “on”.

But fear, and the memory of it broods just under the surface as we speak. I am never very far away from it.

As a lake is half full of water, I am half full of fear, wherever I go. We speak of other things, above the water level of my fear, but the heavy lake of fear sways within.

It is just under the surface. Can you feel it?

Why no?

You flick on a flashlight, and shine it at my feet. The water level recedes to just below your light. I am walking on water now because your light has forced the fear, the water level, to recede from where it was just under my waist, to where it is now, just under my feet.

Wow! Thank you! I shout! I sing and dance, splash my feet in the puddle, the memory of my fear. I take your hands and ask you to dance with me, to splash with me. The lake of fear has become a puddle of fear that I now traipse in.

I need you with me, everywhere I go. And that light thing – that flashlight – can you bring that everywhere too?

You tell me you can’t stay with me and I throw myself prostrate, clinging to your feet, begging you not to leave me. I am horizontal in the puddle now, and fear surrounds me again, even with you here. Please don’t leave me!

I have to leave, you say, gazing with love into my eyes.

You turn around once, twice and are transformed into an eagle. You spring from the ground, eyes lifted, and soar. You circle me from the air, high up, watching me with the piercing vision of that majestic bird.

I can see you sometimes, though you are long way off. Your example encourages me to sit up, to wipe the tears from my eyes, and wait – what is this in my hand? Oh, you left me your flashlight!

I stand up, splashing the puddle with my boots, and switch the flashlight to “on” again. I whirl it round me. No monsters here- only the faint shadow of their movement at the edge of this beam of light.

I sit down to eat awhile, to refresh my spirit. I am on dry ground now, for the warmth of the light from my flashlight has evaporated any water. What was it that you told me again?

“I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.” The Message

I lift my gaze. Light from the arm holding my flashlight naturally lifts to follow my gaze. The light shines higher and I feel lighter, lighter.

No fear to hold me down.

I spin, once, twice and now I am free too, free to soar. I too have found my wings. I too am an eagle.

It was only fear that was holding me captive.

I left my flashlight on the ground for them.

I hope that they (you) find it soon.

How to Receive The Gifts You Really Want This Christmas

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

A hairdryer for the bald guy. A new journal for the person with tendinitis. I have received every color and scent of “bath and body balms”. I’m allergic to them all. (Plus, why do you need a “body balm”? What even is that?) You have examples of your own.

Christmas presents that are useless. We smile, nod, PRETEND, and then say thank you for the stupid stuff in our hands.

How about the gifts that represent the desires of our hearts? The ones that are JUST out of reach? The things that we can’t quite articulate, that we don’t quite have the hope to believe we could ever attain, and so we try to forget.

How do we exchange bad Christmas presents for good ones? Where is that store?

Well, the frustrating part is that if I lead you to that store, you won’t go inside. You think you’ve already seen everything in that store. You think you understand what it’s like. You’re wrong. I know because I didn’t go inside for a long, long time, either.

I stood outside trying to warm my hands and feet while people came out of the store smiling, with shining packages. They invited me to come inside, but “No, I’m fine out here.” They can see that I am suffering in the cold, but they shake their heads and pat me on the shoulder as they walk past.

Many understand because they also stood outside in the cold for a long, long time prior to entering.

However, I had heard that night on the news that freezing temperatures this time of year are deadly. I became more uncomfortable as I shivered, but still, I waited.

Finally, I gave up and turned around. I walked back to my home, put my feet up, and distracted myself with the news.

I HAVE experienced Christianity, I protest!

They knock on the door. They brought me hot chocolate to warm my freezing hands. They offer me packages from the store that I was standing outside of.

Finally, I open one.

Oh, so THIS is what Christianity is like, I exclaim!

The gift we REALLY want will be discussed in detail next time here and here. How to receive good gifts, by cleaning our senses, will also be discussed.

Hey! Don’t blame me for these super short posts! You’re the one with a short attention span! Go read a REAL book or something. As for me, I have a train game streak that I don’t want to mess up, so I gotta go!

“. . . if some . . . outsiders walk in on a service where people are speaking out God’s truth, the plain words will bring them up against the truth and probe their hearts. Before you know it, they’re going to be on their faces before God, recognizing God is among you.” The Message

God, teach us to want to receive good gifts from You. What is hindering me from receiving from You, the gifts I really, really want this Christmas? (Pause and listen. This is how we begin to clean our ears.)